Vodacom CEO explains why mobile data expires

supersunbird said:
French still on analogue TV?

The customers want to pay those high prices, or else they'd be with Telkom.
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Digital TV for a while but TV was using the 400-700Mhz bands.

The 700Mhz is being slowly allocated to operators since 2017 until 2019.

https://www.csa.fr/Mes-services/FAQ...transfert-aux-operateurs-de-telephonie-mobile

I had an unlimited contract for a while when I left France in 2011 so it’s hardly a matter of spectrum.

I guess the lack of switch to digital is the justification of their profit being double the one of the other industry players.
 
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The fact that an ex-CEO here says milk doesn't expire says it all my friends... these people who run (or used to run) a cellphone cartel are so disconnected from reality its a laughable joke. That's what money and power does to the brain of Homo Sapiens- scary stuff!

I am happy to note that a lot of the stuff in this thread has stuck. Does that mean MyBB is going soft on censorship? Going to keep an eye on this...
 
@jannievanzyl I think you are fighting a losing battle in this thread. People are set in their ways, and their minds are made up hat Data is a product, not a service, myself included.

I just loathe the 'spectrum' excuse. It's becoming irritating and old.
 
rubber_otter said:
@jannievanzyl I think you are fighting a losing battle in this thread. People are set in their ways, and their minds are made up hat Data is a product, not a service, myself included.

I just loathe the 'spectrum' excuse. It's becoming irritating and old.
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Data is a service... of course it is.
However, if it can work for prepaid electricity, why can't it work for data.
The core argument that people have is that unused allocations expire. That's like buying 200 units of electricity and using 100, and then we better use the balance before it expires- ain't gonna happen!
 
jannievanzyl said:
What Shameel was talking about is pricing, not expiry.

Data bundles expire because it's a service, not a physical product.

Milk, petrol, etc. are all physical products and don't expire. Once you bought it, you take it home and consume it at your leasure.

Access to a data network is a service, just like you pay for access to a gym, DSTV, etc.

I've been saying on this forum for many years, the first person that can turn data into a physical product you can buy and take home for later consumption will win the Nobel prize for Physics. :)
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Yet, you can buy prepaid airtime which doesn't expire... and that is also a service?
 
vic777 said:
Yet, you can buy prepaid airtime which doesn't expire... and that is also a service?
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Yip, the argument is old... but, airtime did expire, may moons ago. I have also seen it not too long ago.
The cellphone cartel game is all about fleecing the customer. And they ALL DO IT, from Cape To Cairo.
 
Like I said before, if a cellphone network could, they'd even bill you for every CPU cycle used in their switch to carry your call. And for the air used to carry your call. That post from JvZ yesterday said it all... and I can assure you Mr Joosub is even craftier than he was, at fleecement.

That's why I stick with prepaid, on the devil I know- Telkom mobile. Never again will any cartel catch me with a contract. Never ever again, not in this lifetime or the next.
 
Budza said:
Careful- electricity costs more the more you use...

Don't give them any ideas!

:sick:
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The commercial distribution of electric power started in 1882.

2G was started 1991 - 111 years later.

I don't think there are any ideas I can give them.
 
Swa said:
And data happens to be the only tracked non time based service that expires. All other services are either time based (not counting actual usage) or usage based. If I go to Makro and buy a six pack they don't charge me more when I only buy another one after 6 months even though they can.
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Buyig a six-pack is not a service. It's a product. The fact that you take it home and keep it there should tell you that.

Swa said:
And I've been saying the same thing for years. There was never a switch to usage based but SA for some reason went with it from the start where the world norm is bandwidth based. It's impossible to calculate a cost when the metrics aren't the same. The most you can do is calculate one on average usage that's higher than the network costs but Vodacom is further screwing the metrics by introducing expiry.
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Actually all consumer-focussed ISPs around the world made the switch fixed and mobile.
 
rwenzori said:
This is such a nonsense argument. If you sell it by quantity, it is defined, measurable, and consumption is measurable. As such it is no different to a physical product.
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Then please show it to us. Sommer a quick photo of the last 1GB of data you bought.

Reality is, it's a service with a cap. And that is what confuse people. I understand it's complex for the average consumer (I also don't like it) but I would've thought MyBB reader would understand the effect of converting a bit/s service into c/MB.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Actually all consumer-focussed ISPs around the world made the switch fixed and mobile.
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Consumer focused ISPs such as?

I have yet to see one fibre operator in Western Europe charging a data amount rather than a bandwidth speed.

They mustn’t be consumer focused, I guess.

All cellphone operators with uncapped packages use a mix, you have xGo on LTE and then unlimited on shaped LTE or 3G.

I really don’t see where this switch happened.
 
rubber_otter said:
@jannievanzyl I think you are fighting a losing battle in this thread. People are set in their ways, and their minds are made up hat Data is a product, not a service, myself included.

I just loathe the 'spectrum' excuse. It's becoming irritating and old.
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I don't mind having a decent discussion with people who understand the complexities and are willing to debate.

It's sad to see so many who just attack without thinking it through, but you'll always get them. What they don't realise is that they just show their ignorance, especially the ones trying to be cool with some silly remark or statement.

I'm also pretty much gat-vol of the spectrum story. But it's 100% legit. Just look at what we achieved in Lesotho where we got the spectrum.

The quicker we get massive capacity, the quicker we can move back to a /s service and lots of this stuff will go away.
 
f2wohf said:
I really don’t see where this switch happened.
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You can't be serious?

So, according to you all consumer ISPs worldwide (except ZA) only offer uncapped services? No bundled services?

EVERY.SINGLE.MOBILE.OPERATOR? Worldwide?

....did not know that.
 
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jannievanzyl said:
I don't mind having a decent discussion with people who understand the complexities and are willing to debate.

It's sad to see so many who just attack without thinking it through, but you'll always get them. What they don't realise is that they just show their ignorance, especially the ones trying to be cool with some silly remark or statement.

I'm also pretty much gat-vol of the spectrum story. But it's 100% legit. Just look at what we achieved in Lesotho where we got the spectrum.

The quicker we get massive capacity, the quicker we can move back to a /s service and lots of this stuff will go away.
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What type of spectrum was allocated in Lesotho? And what would you say is sufficient to drive a national 5G network?
 
jannievanzyl said:
You can't be serious?

So, according to you all consumer ISPs worldwide (except ZA) only offer uncapped services? No bundled services?

EVERY.SINGLE.MOBILE.OPERATOR? worldwide.

Wow....did not know that.
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1. I said Western Europe, not the world.

2. Not all but the vast majority of the fibre market is uncapped and there is no real space for capped since uncapped is affordable for everybody. Can’t think of capped offers actually.

3. On mobile, I spoke of uncapped offers. Capped does give you a quantity of data as it did since the creation of cellphones and not a speed I agree.

So no, I don’t see any switch.
 
I’m also still trying to understand how on earth with a french SIM card, I get 25Go/month that I can use in SA on Vodacom for +/- R300/month and free calls on a month to month contract while taking the same bundle on Vodacom would cost me over R1000?

You’ve managed to make roaming internationally on your network cheaper than your network, I’ve actually never seen that before.

It’s not a promotion.
 
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